Stephen Mason’s half-century: Leading industry lawyer and Travlaw senior Continued from page 48


since the pandemic despite a favourable Supreme Court ruling in December 2020, and Gatwick’s plan to bring its emergency runway into regular use. On the one hand, the


secretaries of state gave “significant weight to the harm” of removing the Saturday afternoon curfew at London City which would have led to “80 aircraft movements on a typical summer Saturday afternoon”. On the other, they accepted


the airport’s growth forecasts, stating: “Long-term growth in demand is likely to recover and continue to grow.” They ignored advice from


public policy think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) which described the airport’s plan as “abysmal [and] directly contradicting advice from the government’s own Climate Change Committee”. NEF senior economist Alex


Chapman, an expert witness at the planning inquiry, labelled London City “the favoured airport of frequent and ultra- frequent flyers” and noted a NEF analysis in 2019 found a third of its passengers (33%) flew on routes served by direct train from London and another 31% to destinations reachable with a single change of train. He argued: “Most seats


added through airport expansions are taken by higher- income frequent flyers [and] we’ve already got capacity for some 300 million passenger movements every year.” The government’s decision


may be challenged by a High Court application for a statutory review, which must be made by the end of September. This seems highly likely.


Looking back to the mid-1970s, Stephen Mason recalls: ‘Package holidays were considered trivial [in legal terms]. But I loved it and became a specialist’


Lawyer Stephen Mason on 50 years in practice


When Travlaw senior counsel Stephen Mason began practising as a lawyer in April 1974, the travel trade was largely unregulated and there were no travel lawyers. Mason explained: “I started


in general practice work and commercial disputes at a firm in Leeds which had clients in the textile industry. I spent two years on contract law. There was no ‘travel law’, just one case, Jarvis v Swans Tours, where the court decided a consumer was entitled to compensation for loss of enjoyment and ‘distress’ [on a holiday].” But there was a tour operator,


Intasun North, in the area and Mason said: “When Intasun North had a legal problem, the firm sent a junior – me. Package holidays were considered trivial. But I loved it and became a specialist [in the area]. Other


The demand for


travel law expertise grew exponentially [with the 1992 PTRs] – business ballooned


companies started instructing me. “The work and the number of


clients grew over five to six years. There were no Package Travel Regulations (PTRs) then. Such regulation as existed – such as the ‘stabiliser rule’ – mostly came from Abta [then officially the Association of British Travel Agents]. Abta had its code of conduct and a big proportion of the industry were Abta members.” The ‘stabiliser’ agreement,


introduced in the 1960s, involved exclusive trade arrangements between


Abta member tour operators and travel agents, and saw Abta arrange the rescue and reimbursement of holidaymakers if an operator failed. Mason started his own specialist


travel law firm, Mason and Bond, with a colleague, Liz Bond, in 1986. The company is now MB Law. He noted: “The first set of


travel regulations came in with the European Package Travel Directive in 1990 and the 1992 PTRs. These made a huge difference. Until that time, package travel organisers were not liable when things went wrong unless something was their fault – the supplier was at fault. That was turned on its head by the PTRs. The demand for travel law expertise grew exponentially. Business ballooned. The increased liability was a serious matter. We won many more clients. “Then I met Professor David Grant


46


29 AUGUST 2024


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